


Dream, deferred

by orphan_account



Category: The Sandman
Genre: Gen, New Year's Resolutions 2005, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-20
Updated: 2005-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 07:44:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing scene/coda for <i>Brief Lives</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream, deferred

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Marks.

A flock of tiny orioles flew past Barnabas's nose, making him sneeze. He pawed at his face for a few moments until the birds were safely away, borne in the currents of a multicolored whirlwind that skipped across the field where they lay in the sun. He shook himself thoroughly and dropped down onto his stomach.

"hi, sneezy doggie," said his mistress. She petted him and, where her fingers passed, his coat turned the shades of autumn.

"What are you doing?" Barnabas rolled to his side and let her scratch his belly, right where the hair thinned and got tickly.

"making birdies and spinning them around," she said. "like when you eat too much icing and forget to eat the cake."

"Oh," Barnabas said.

Much later, she got up and walked across the meadow, which turned into a flagstone plaza and then a carefully-laid mosaic floor. Barnabas roused himself, shook again, and followed her through the double doors that appeared, just hanging in the sky, as if there were no way around them. He watched her take a mask from the wall.

"brother? i'm in my gallery, because i found it again, and can you come see me? i have your sigilthingy and i won't drop it, i promise..."

"I am sure you will be careful, little sister." Barnabas wheeled around to see the tall pale man he'd met when Destruction was still his human. The man was wearing a simple shirt and jeans, and no shoes. Barnabas trusted humans without shoes. They understood things. "Why did you summon me, Delirium?"

She twirled her hair in her fingers, letting it change from ringlets to dreadlocks to nothing at all as she thought. "i wanted to say thank you...for when you apologized after we went to find Destruction and he gave me my doggie."

"Very well. You are welcome," Dream said. "There was no reason to call me to your realm for that."

"no," Delirium said, "but i thought maybe you would walk with me and i could show you the puddles...they have pretty birds and sometimes the water is shiny like oil and maybe we could talk. about before."

Dream bowed slightly as Delirium hung his sigil back in the frame, then opened the double doors. The mosaic floor had disappeared. Now the jungle - the one with the large pools - lay across the threshold. Barnabas heard the birds hooting and calling each other in the late afternoon light. He trotted behind the siblings as they walked slowly into the dappled shade along the jungle's edges.

"Before what, my sister?"

"before. when i was her, not now like the me that i am now." Delirium twirled along the path, dancing to the birdsong.

"When you were Delight?"

"yes. her. do you remember her, brother?"

"I do."

"do you miss her ever, like missing Destruction or the old Despair or Orpheus?" She stopped suddenly and plastered her hands over her mouth, her hair and clothes changing to greyed clumps and rags. "i shouldn't have said that...you hate me now..."

Dream sighed. "I do not hate you, sister. My business with my son is settled." He pulled Delirium's hands gently away from her mouth. "It is not a question of missing Delight. She is no longer, as Destruction is no longer. Missing them serves no purpose. As Destruction observed, the realms continue whether we are there to observe and manage them or not."

"i didn't ask you if you _could_ miss Delight," Delirium said stubbornly. "i asked you if you _did_."

Dream turned and took a step away. Barnabas pressed close to Delirium's legs, leaning into her and letting her tears fall onto his leaf-colored coat.

"i guess not..." she said sadly.

"Sister...." Dream turned back to her. "It is impossible not to miss Delight, just as it is impossible to be happy near our grey sister or to deny want when near her twin. But it serves no purpose to miss her. She is gone, and you are here."

"would you miss me if i were gone? if Delight came back?"

Dream shook his head. "If Delirium ceased to be, some other realm would take her place, but it would not be Delight."

"i remember, you know. why she changed into me. i told Destiny. and then i changed back to her so he would tell us where Destruction was."

"I know."

"it hurt." She sank to the ground, hugging Barnabas tightly. "you didn't say if you would miss me. maybe you wouldn't. maybe nobody would miss me."

"You are fishing for compliments, Delirium."

She giggled and waved her hand. A shower of goldfish fell into one of the pools, startling a hippopotamus lazing in the water. "fishies..."

Dream folded himself to the ground beside her. "Why did you summon me, sister?"

Delirium hugged her knees to her chest. "if i wanted a dream but didn't want to tell you what it was, would you give it to me? and not watch when it was happening? can you do that?"

"I can."

"would you?"

"Perhaps. You would have to tell me what the dream was, or I could not send it to you."

She frowned and chewed on her lip. "i can be delight, you know. i changed my eyes and everything."

"Yes."

"but i can't remember all of it."

"Is it important to you, to remember?"

"maybe remembering it will make it go away."

"Perhaps." Dream stood, crossing his arms and looking down at her. "The night comes, sister. Do you wish to make a request of me?"

Delirium sprawled across the grass as the jungle turned back into a late-afternoon English garden. Dragonflies, iridescent in pink and orange and yellow, darted through the dusty sunbeams. Barnabas chased them as Delirium thought.

"Delirium."

"is there a word for what it's like when you want to remember something but you know that it will make you sad and other people will be mad that you wanted to know it anyway, and so you decide maybe you won't?"

"No."

"i didn't think so." She rolled to her stomach, then stood up and took  
Dream's hand. They began to walk toward the double doors, still hanging midair across the lawn.

"you're really my brother now."

"I have always been your brother, Delirium."

"no," she said, as the dragonflies dulled into the colors of the evening sky. "you were always her brother even after she was gone. only Despair was _my_ sister. but then we went to find Destruction and we did and i got my doggie and you got to say goodbye to Orpheus and...."

Barnabas raced ahead to sit, panting, on the low steps rising to the doors. He watched as one tiny dragonfly settled on his nose, refusing to change in the amethyst twilight, remaining stubbornly - impossibly - red-gold in the last shafts of sunlight.

"...and now i am really your sister and you are really my brother and maybe that makes a difference or maybe it doesn't." She pushed the doors open and let him pass through. "sorry i bothered you, Dream. i guess i thought maybe i wanted something i didn't really."

She let the doors fall closed, Dream inside, while she stayed on the steps. Barnabas wagged his tail and made a hopeful growling sound until she looked at him. Delirium's laugh was a cascade of shimmering bubbles, and he chased them until he could run no more.

 


End file.
